The cheapest reasonable college so you/your parents can use the money for med school
The college needs to prepare you for MCATs but still allow you to get a good GPA
Access to volunteering opportunities (e.g., near a hospital)
Success in graduates getting into med school
Options if you don’t go to med school
So if you go to the easiest school…do their students end up going to med school? What %?
Will the school prepare you for the MCAT?
And like others say, take % that get into med school with a grain of salt if you look at college’s websites.
Let’s say 100 kids show up freshman year wanting to be premed.
After Freshman year 75 are left because some couldn’t hack biology.
After Sophomore year 50 are left because they coudlnt’ hack Organic Chemistry.
After Junior year 30 are left because some have changed their mind about their major…or they never got around to doing all those volunteer hours.
After Senior year you have to take the MCAT, get recommindations and maybe go before your Health Career committee to get a recommnedation. They look at your GPA, MCAT< volunteering, recommondations and give 10 of them a recommendation. The other 20 don’t apply because of the low probabaility of getting in because of no committee letter or bad MCAT scores.
So 10 apply and 9 get it. We have a 90% acceptance rate!
But if you look back at who wanted to be pre-med freshman year…it is 9%
I know two people who had no intention of going to med school and who chose their undergraduate college based on academic rigor. It wasn’t until their junior years (or maybe even senior) that they decided to give it a shot. In one case it was an outgrowth of an undergraduate research experience and in the other case it was the result of a family member’s illness.
Others have had great replies too which validates 100% what I am saying!! Out of people that applied the matriculation rates at many of these “lesser known, less prestigious, CC considers average” schools have just as high or higher acceptance rates than the top 30 ranked schools.
Doesn’t mean the “premed” student will make it there, but why take the risk going to a more expensive, harder, more challenging school, if you pull a 3.5gpa its doubtful you are getting into a good Allopathic Med school, DO I’m sure you would be fine.
Thanks for affirming my thoughts…of course if you have a perfect superman/woman child like many on CC do I guess it doesn’t matter because of their infinite abilities.
What docs did 10+ years ago has little/no meaning now.
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wouldn't a easier school be wiser for a student with MD dreams?
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Being premed isn’t easy at any good school. Premed prereqs are not unique classes. Every good school can teach the material relevant to the MCAT.
A harder school doesn’t prepare students for the MCAT.
It can be very unwise to go to a school where you aren’t most likely well-within the top quartile, if you’re premed.
Every school weeds. Every school has 2-4 times as many Frosh premeds than what it wants to end up applying to med school. Even top schools with extreme grade inflation will weed in the premed prereqs.
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Those 90%, 92% matriculation rates may omit that 100 students showed up on day 1 with dreams of being a MD. For any number of reasons most will change their minds (eg poor grades/MCAT, change in interests, realization that they will say bye bye to their 20s, maybe half of their 30s as well if fellowship training pursued, and are facing a minimum uphill 11 year slog (including college and residency). So of those who actually get to point of applying, 15 of them are still standing, apply, and 13 get accepted. The school proudly announces on their website that 90% of their premeds get into med school, conveniently omitted that 85 others started and are pursuing other pathways..Be very wary of published matriculation rates.
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Yup!!! ^^
I remember a young man telling me that he was going to go to a certain LAC because it had a 90% med school acceptance rate. HE thought that meant that 90% of Frosh premeds would end up in med school…so wrong.
I think a lot of good students see other good students striving to attend the best college possible, and they follow along, not noticing that if they are pre-med, engineering, accounting, nursing, ROTC, and possibly a few other situations, they are in a different paradigm… one in which there isn’t nearly the payoff for attending an elite school.